home altar is the highly
elaborated daughter, reading over her lover's shoulder, from a
newspaper held conveniently by him, a spicy, exciting, moral tale of a
daring spirit who had sold a sloop-load of hay, just as it floated, to
the Government, and then--when he had got his pay--set fire to it and
burnt the whole concern so effectually, that very few could presume to
think that at least two-thirds of it had been old straw.

It is a noble and beautiful thing to remember, or note, my boy, that
the true and real Home,--the shrine of parental Love and Honor, and of
childhood's Innocence and fearless trust,--is ever held sanctified by
an unseen angel-circle, into which a few men can bring even so much of
the scheming outer world as its cares; that its name, long, perhaps,
after it has ceased to be, lives for our voices only in that plaintive
medium tone, which, like the master-string of an instrument responding
to a passionate touch, sums up, by its very cadence, all the noblest
music of a life.

It is this state of things in Washington that greatly confuses the
stranger, and causes him to make strange and horrible mistakes as to
personal identities. On Monday afternoon, as I stood musing in front of
Willard's, after a dispassionate conversation with the Conservative
Kentucky Chap as to the probability of Kentucky's consenting to the
setting apart of the first of January as New-Year's day, I overheard a
conversation between a middle-aged chap of much vest pattern from the
rural districts, and one of the Provost Marshal's disguised detectives.
The rural chap chewed a wisp of straw which he had been using as a
toothpick, and says he:

"That gentleman in a broad-brim hat, going along on the other side of
the street, is a prominent New York politician,--is he not?"

The detective involuntarily rattled a pair of miniature handcuffs which
were hanging from his watch-chain, and says he:

"Ha! ha! truly! That's a queer mistake. Why, that's Nandy Brick, the
incendiary and negro-killer."

Not at all discouraged by this failure at guessing, my boy, the rural
chap glanced knowingly at another passer-by, and says he:

"Well, this here other one who just went by is the French Minister, I
believe?"

"Really!" says the detective, with a slight cough, "Really, you're
wrong again, for that's 'Policy Loo,' the notorious Mexican murderer
and thief."

The rural chap bit his right thumb-nail irritatedly, and says he:

"At any rate,